Sheffield strip club keeps licence despite opposition by feminist coalition

Because, of course, giving sex work employers (those well known fine upstanding citizens and backbone of society) the legal right to impose filming of employees at all times is much less likely to see videos ending up for profit on Porn Hub than a bunch of feminists doing last ditch whistleblowing in the face of regulatory failure.

THIS

Please read this, from an actual employee.

So what can and should be done? What would you do?

Let me address my experience of those kind of reviews/testimonials. Because I have not only been a dancer, but ran a club as house mum for a while. And one of those duties was managing the FB page. Loads of the dancers would leave reviews. 5 star. As would customers. We had about 2000 positive reviews and only three negative reviews. All three from dancers.

All three were girls that no longer worked at the club. Many girls come and go as they are self employed and like to work different clubs etc. These three though had been sacked. I'd sacked them myself.

Girl one. Stole three bottles of vodka on her third shift. Found two in her bag. She'd drunk half the other one, thrown up all over another dancer's bag and ruined their clothes, then tried to slap the bar manager as she was escorted from the premises. Her subsequent review was "this place is scum you can get sex for £20 there"

Girl 2 had been with us over a year, never caused any concern. I then, one night, found her in the toilets buying coke off a female customer. The police were called. That kind of crap gets you shut down on the spot. Sacked immediately. She begged for her job back for weeks and of course was refused.
She subsequently left a review to say "management are vile, place is a whorehouse"

Girl 3. The owner of the club had a summer BBQ at his every year. They had a lovely pool and we'd all just stuff ourselves and have a pool party. With our partners too. Girl 3 was single. And had the hots for the boss. She made a move on him in the kitchen. His wife ( stood in the kitchen at the time) went rightly ballistic. She was kicked out of the BBQ and I got told to sack her if she had the balls to try and turn up to work. She did. But she said only to collect shoes she'd left in the changing rooms and then left. She left a review saying the owner was a "dirty pig who shagged all the girls and you got sacked if you didn't"

So when I see reviews from ex-dancers slating a place, I don't take it as gospel by any stretch. Because dancers that work/leave on good terms don't make those comments. And that's 99.9% of us.

No one gives a shit about 'rescuing' people who are perfectly happy.

You (general you) kind of do want to rescue perfectly happy people though if you feel the need to shut down all strip clubs everywhere as all the poor women are oppressed...
you (general you) want to swoop in and save the day and rescue them all by shutting down strip clubs (not just this one, all of them as a poster upthread to the question "so what is a solution then?" answered ban all strip clubs.
So by default with that mindset you shut down choice for others.

Can someone please step off the AstroTurf and read my screenshot above and answer the question?

(pro-women posters only please)

And until women like you finally get it through your heads that that's not what a strip club is, you'll never be able to understand why we love our career choice.

But it really is. When you strip it back to fundamentals, it's a place men go to look at naked women because it turns them on to do so.

You are being paid to pander to men's innate sense of entitlement over the female sex. Whether that's being wanked over as a purely physical turn on or feeding their fantasies that you're really their girlfriend / therapist / the only one that understands them, or stroking their ego that they are powerful / attractive to women. Either way, it reduces human intimacy to a commercial transaction. They're paying for access to your naked body because it satisfies a need they feel entitled to satiate.

If you can't see how that contributes to the commodification and objectification of women, you are genuinely part of the problem and I both feel sorry for you and am actually quite angry with you. Every time you perpetuate this "happy hooker / laughing lapdancer" bullshit narrative, you legitimise the coercion and trafficking of the women who don't have a free choice.

If a man doesn't support his family because he spends his money on other things, it's not what he spends the money on that's the problem

Exactly, it's not what he's spending his money on that's the main problem in that scenario - it's down to the individual being an unsupportive knob you'd (general you) be better off without in the first place.

Women will never be equal with men as long as one of those "career choices" for women is dropping their knickers for money so men can wank off.

And until women like you finally get it through your heads that that's not what a strip club is, you'll never be able to understand why we love our career choice.

If you're going to make such stupid comments about my place of work, then cool, like I said, you just help us highlight what we have to put up with and gain us support, so that's great, but your comments are categorically unfounded.

Clubs like spearmint rhino, and the women who work in them, perpetuate the objectification of women.

Their existence perpetuates the idea that it is perfectly fine that women can be bought as masturbatory material. Courtney is complicit and colluding with this.

This is the case even if there had been no violations.

@RosesAndRaindrops

See what I mean. You can actually directly call them out that they've spent half the thread lying and insisting that there were 200 breaches in 20 minutes.

All their lies get glossed over.

"Er, but it was 74....so....yeah...er...fuck you"

Um... again, just to get us back in the real world, it doesn't actually say 74 of what. So again, this could be 74 barstools in front of 74 fire escapes. And it will predominantly be stuff like that. Not exclusively. But that will be the absolute bulk of it. It's not like their clueless assumptions and accusations. I've worked at spearmint fucking rhino

My favourite part of this whole thread is the comedy gold above...

You have no idea what else constituted the 74 breaches of licence. It's pure speculation on your part

Say that again. Slooooowly.

Genius

But we'll actively ignore that she's telling us that the hundreds of dancers she's encountered in her extensive career unanimously feel the same. We'll ignore her and other the dancers on this thread.

I think you seem to be under the impression that this is only about dancers. It isn't. I don't doubt that you're satisfied, personally. And that some other women are too.

No one gives a shit about 'rescuing' people who are perfectly happy.

It's not really about specific women in a specific club. There are, indeed, groups who address that, but radical feminism is about addressing the objectification of women.

Clubs like spearmint rhino, and the women who work in them, perpetuate it.

We can sit here all the live long day deciding whether or not someone was sexually assaulted, or just showed up late. It's beside the point. The clubs are consistently unregulated, the women are not important enough to enforce regulation, because the clubs perpetuate the idea that they are second-class.

There may be many women who are complicit in this, who don't care, but radical feminism does. It doesn't care that you kick up a stink about it.

As I said before. It's either coercion, or you're complicit. It has to be one or the other.

Of course you are capable of independent thought.

What you and Courtney are incapable of seeing is the wider context of thinking stripping is a valid career choice. Women will never be equal with men as long as one of those "career choices" for women is dropping their knickers for money so men can wank off.

That is all strpping and lap "dancing" is. Wank aids. All that guff by one poster about artistic expression or whatever she said is laughable nonsense. There are 1,000s of alternative circus troupes, physical theatre and dance groups around if one wants to see the grace, beauty and physicality of the human body. Men and women appear in these groups and men and women are in their audience. None of them is wank fodder.

Please read this, from an actual employee.

So what can and should be done? What would you do?

I believe Courtney has sufficiently established that Courtney loves her industry

But we'll actively ignore that she's telling us that the hundreds of dancers she's encountered in her extensive career unanimously feel the same. We'll ignore her and other the dancers on this thread. It's just Courtney and hundreds of other's actual real life experience, which is irrelevant and insignificant against our theoretical assumptions, lies, and deliberate misinterpretations

Which is the women Courtney is very keen to make invisible.

I'm not keen to make them invisible. I've not met one. And I'm in the industry. Not you. And these bullshit sensationalised stories in the press, are what you choose to believe with your zero knowledge or experience. Even when numerous actual dancers spell it out to you how and why it's crap. By all means go save whoever needs saving. But if you want to save dancers (not prostitutes masquerading as them, then crying to the press that it wasn't their fault cos they got caught being prostitutes) then I have never encountered one . So sorry the actuality of my industry doesn't support your theoretical campaign.

women whose households are drained of the resources by wank-needy men who spend their money in strip clubs instead of on home and family.

The fuck this has got to do with dancers If a man doesn't support his family because he spends his money on other things, it's not what he spends the money on that's the problem. DH wants a stupidly expensive motorbike. I don't blame the bike shop or the salesman for DHs decisions. I want a first class long haul holiday. I don't blame Kuoni or the sales agent for my decision.

Again, keep going. This kind of stuff is why so many people are finally listening to us now. I salute that.

Never going to be of the mindset that as a female I am incapable of independent thought.
If you are, crack on.
That aint a feminist stance though. Not in my world. Maybe in yours.

As a woman, the more I'm told I can't do something the more I want to do it.

Well that certainly goes some way to explaining your level of discourse.

😆

Courtney, you're the only one who appears to have just read the link!! Dear lord.

74 breaches of license and 145 breaches of code of contact were reported, including reports of sexual harassment and abuse.

It's extraordinary that you think this is insignificant. You have no idea what else constituted the breaches, including the 74 breaches of licence. It's pure speculation on your part, along with the conjecture that because you know prostitutes who masqueraders dancers, it must be that.

This determination to project your own, singular experience on to everything else is odd.

The only fact you have is that there are over 200 breaches.

Deciding that's just going to constitute tardiness, is ridiculous. The discussion has been going for seven months, and the hearing lasted eight hours.

Eight hours. Looking at 200 breaches constituting insignificant things like being late, is the work of minutes.

And yes, if the club performed with more responsibility, and no breaches were noted, I'd still object to it. Of course. It perpetuates the objectification of women. And no amount of chatting naked with the punters changes that.

@Courtney555
Keep it coming. You help us no end!

They won't see that though.
Never do.
As a woman, the more I'm told I can't do something the more I want to do it... so the more I read the radical stance of women can't choose for themselves on here whether it be stripping, or doing their nails (only want to because we've been brainwashed into looking pretty for the men etc)
the more I want to do my nails (even though I never do them anyway) or strip (never do that anyway either lol)
Pushed more and more away and harder against their stance.... so if that's the aim they're succeeding?!
Women thinking and doing things for themselves and capable of independent thought.... that's me.

Oh and putting up with all this in RL too for 10 years?! I'd have gone round the bend by now

Please, and I do mean this, because you and the way your cronies behave in this way, keep showing the world the mentality our industry deals with. It is exactly why our clubs stay open. Exactly why we get the opportunity to educate people who notice what you are and what you do

Your clubs stay open because men wank off when women get their clothes off.

Not because you are misunderstood as strippers.

Courtney thanks, who'd have thunk then?
Couldn't have seen that coming!

Yes, get in. Just 74 breaches of licence. Almost entirely nothing to see here

That, that's your only response to finding out actually, if that was the case Courtney was correct and it is a load of bollocks if so?!
Will have to have a google myself to have a look, heaven forbid people don't just swallow everything they're told blindly on here with no sources, backup, or whatever!
Then people wonder why I ask for links or sources when they come out with random figures, this people is why - so people can see for themselves....

ANYWAY.

I believe Courtney has sufficiently established that Courtney loves her industry and believes herself to have been an elite performer within it. Bully for Courtney. She's a Thatcherite through and through and done quite well out of it, thank you.

So let's give Courtney a slap on the back and get back to the topic of the thread.

Which is the women Courtney is very keen to make invisible.

The women at the arse end of this industry, which is in regulatory failure, and are working in illegal and coercive environments. Also the women whose households are drained of the resources by wank-needy men who spend their money in strip clubs instead of on home and family.

Those women.

The ones neoliberal individualist capitalists like Courtney don't give two shits about.

You're doing nothing more than proving my point.

Pretend you can't understand context.

Please, and I do mean this, because you and the way your cronies behave in this way, keep showing the world the mentality our industry deals with. It is exactly why our clubs stay open. Exactly why we get the opportunity to educate people who notice what you are and what you do.

Keep it coming. You help us no end!

I think Roses saying that it's a bad thing when people don't read posts properly and just attack instead is as close as you're going to get Lang to an apology for doing exactly that.

74 breaches of licence

Yes, get in. Just 74 breaches of licence. Almost entirely nothing to see here.

Good morning, Roses. I notice you were very keen to reply to me earlier in the thread but, since having made a fool of yourself accusing me of recommending solutions that Datun merely asked about, you seem unable to see me.

Retraction, please. It would look very ungracious on your part to wait until page forty, don't you think?

@RosesAndRaindrops

And after a quick Google. Guess what... it is bollocks

However did I know that #psychicstripper

But yes. 200 violations in 20 minutes, is bollocks. See the way they lie so freely and support each others lies. We live this bullshit every week at work. For entertainment purposes though, watch the thread now...

For clarity...

Turns out, not only did they do this disgusting illegal filming twice they found the following...

74 breaches of licence. Now, this can be anything from a bar stool in front of a fire escape, to a dancer shoving a ginsters pasty up her ass. I can tell you now, it's going to be the former but they'll (with no reasoning at all) shout that it can only be the second. They might have caught one/two girls inappropriately touching each other, and those girls have been sacked. Quite rightly. They don't belong in our clubs. The report even states that they fully investigated and management had no idea. I mean, they wouldn't. If you've got a prostitute in there whispering to customers "another £500 and I'll come back to yours" no one knows. But the minute they did, they sacked them.

And guess what. The sacked girls aren't being complimentary about the club. Noooooooooooo. No one could have seen that coming

It then goes on to say there were 145 breaches of the clubs personal code of conduct. As in this is fuck all to do with a license. We have such high standards in our industry every club has a massive list of dancers code of conduct. This contains things like, only one girl to be on the stage at a time. Anyone more than an hour late for a shift will not be allowed to work. Anyone taking a customer's number will be sacked. One club, if I didn't have three different coloured outfit changes per night, they'd cancel your next shift.

If they caught 145 of those breaches, it doesn't matter one bit to the licence. Because spearmints personal in house rules are entirely down to spearmint. And if they did catch 20 girls turn up late, but then work their shift, "contrary to the club code" it's got fuck all to do with them...but they get to state "ooooh we caught 20 violations right there" because it sounds bad and that's all that matters

It's honestly beyond pathetic.